Yorkshire Post (23/May/1949) - The Last Trip of 'Meltham Coddy'

The following is a transcription of a historic newspaper article and may contain occasional errors. If the article was published prior to 1 June 1957, then the text is likely in the Public Domain.

The Last Trip of 'Meltham Coddy'

From our Huddersfield Staff

It might have been August Bank Holiday Monday at Meltham station on Saturday evening but for the absence of buckets and spades and ice-cream.

Close on two hundred people bustled each other on the tiny platform, packed and scrambled their way into the three coaches of "Meltham Coddy," took pieces of coal from the tender as souvenirs and, to the hoot of the last passenger train whistle Meltham will hear for quite a long time to come, started on the 20-minute journey to Huddersfield.

Running locomotives to Meltham has recently become an unprofitable investment as the Melthamers have preferred to spend 5d. on the service bus rather than the 1s. 2d. on a train ticket.

But on Saturday evening they did rot begrudge the extra 9d. to take advantage of a last ride through five miles of what is perhaps the most picturesque country in the Huddersfield district

"Meltham Coddy," the nickname by which the train has long been known locally, has been doing the journey several times a day since 1869.

Just before starting time at 7.25, the 42-year-old driver, Tom Mcurley, of Low Moor, Bradford, as a final gesture to the villagers, answered a small boy's request to "make it smoke, Mr."

At Healey House, Netherton and Lockwood, there were more trippers whose main interest was not particularly to travel to Huddersfield but to boast a last ride on "Coddy." All along the line, and especially at Beaumont Park, crowds of handkerchief-waving people paid their last respects to the train which is now a thing of the past.

Even Tom Mcurley and his fireman, 29-year-old Arthur Carrodus, of Dudley Hill, Bradford, seemed to treat the occasion as something more than just another run, for there were many long, loud blasts on the whistle.

There was one man in the train who had also ridden in the first passenger train out of the village 80 years ago. That was 90-vear-old Mr. Francis Creaser, of Calmlands, Meltham.

"Coddy" in a North-country dialect word meaning a little fellow.